


A Little Bit Distasteful

by DictionaryWrites



Series: A Comprehensive Set of Attractions [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic Sherlock, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Aggression, Brotherly Love, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Whump, too obviously as this is Sherlock and Mycroft we're discussing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4450670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft points out, in his dry way, that John is more interested in Sherlock than either Sherlock or John himself are aware of. </p><p>In Sherlock's attempt to avoid some sort of unwanted advance on John's part, Sherlock and John <i>clash</i>, before getting back to normality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit Distasteful

**Author's Note:**

> My headcanon Sherlock is **aromantic** , meaning he doesn't experience romantic attraction, but he's not actually asexual, as his narrative implies in this fic - I generally write him as being demisexual, meaning that he only experiences sexual attraction to attractive people he already has a strong emotional bond with, but as this fic is set before The Woman's introduction, he has yet to work that out.

 “He's very attracted to you, you know,” Mycroft says. Sherlock drops back his head, and it lands with a quiet _thunk_ on the wooden floor of Mycroft's office. It sings right through his aching skull, but it doesn't matter – Sherlock's had hangovers before, and this is precisely why he's lying on the floor of Mycroft's office, sprawled in front of his desk.

Mycroft is annoying, but John would be _unbearable_. At least Mycroft knows how to deal with a hangover.

John--

Pesters. Shows _concern_. It's all very strange and bizarre and _normal_ , and Sherlock can't really think straight enough to ignore it.

“Shut up, Mycroft,” replies Sherlock dully, staring up at the pattern on the ceiling. It sways and moves under his gaze (over his gaze?) and Sherlock frowns at it to spare him the effort of turning his head to frown at Mycroft instead. Everything's a little hazy, but he knows it will pass, and so he just lies mostly still, body spread like a murder victim's on the expensive carpet.

“ _Do_ you know?” Mycroft asks, in the tone he uses to be _delicate_ , and if it wouldn't take so much energy, he'd roll his eyes.

“Of course I _know_.” The reply is short, clipped. John stares at him when he thinks Sherlock's not looking, stares at the curve of his arse, at his fingers, at the rest of his body when Sherlock's not dressed – and John shows it in the parting of his lips, the dilation of his pupils, the race of his pulse.

Besides, he was wanking last week and he said Sherlock's _name_ , whispered it when he thought Sherlock wouldn't hear him through the thin ceiling between their bedrooms. (Sherlock has the best hearing in London. He doesn't miss anything.)

“What are you going to do?”

“Ignore it.”

“ _Sherlock_ -” Mycroft protests lowly, and Sherlock huffs.

“Oh, _what_ , Mycroft?” He turns his head, looking at the older man where he sits at his desk, getting on with discharge paperwork for MI6 as he glances, occasionally, at the corpse-like figure of his brother on the ground. “What, do you want me to suck his cock?” Mycroft _flusters_ at that, suddenly indignant with his shoulders squaring like the tail feathers of a proud bird, but before he can snap at Sherlock for being so coarse, Sherlock bites out, “I don't like **sex** , Mycroft. It's _dull_. It's _boring_. And least of all do I want to have sex with _John!_ He'd- He'd fall in _love_ with me or something equally banal.”

Mycroft arches an eyebrow. Sherlock looks away.

 _Love_ has always been somewhat beyond him.

He loves Mycroft, dearly and fiercely, much as the other man _infuriates_ him, and similar love is laid on the backs of his parents, on a few select members of his family; Sherlock had loved his dog, when the animal hadn't yet been put down. But romance? _Falling_ in love?

He began to suspect he wasn't capable when he was a teenager, and by this point he's _aware_ of it. Sherlock is not made for that sort of thing.

Mycroft is. Mycroft is, and he doesn't even _use_ it, doesn't even use the fact that he's less of a freak than Sherlock is and get involved with people.

“You do _realize_ , brother mine, that he's slightly in love with you already?” Sherlock groans, hiding his face in his hands – it's difficult for him to judge when people are in _love_. He understands _arousal_ , understands attraction, but love is a far more complicated thing to understand, a far more difficult thing to analyse, and he **hates** it.

He wants to throw himself at Mycroft's face and hide his face in his brother's lap when he was fifteen and drunk out of his mind, high and with a cigar hanging out of his mouth that Mycroft had snatched from him to stop Sherlock from burning the knee of his trousers: he'd _begged_ Mycroft, in a slurred and clumsy fashion, how to make this _bloody_ girl stop **loving** him.

Mycroft had put him to bed in the heavy, 40s armchair in the corner of his bedroom, putting his own quilt over Sherlock's body, and Sherlock had slept, but Mycroft hadn't been able to answer him.

When Sherlock draws his hands from where they're balled over his tired eyes, Mycroft is standing over him, looking down at him with an arched eyebrow and pursed lips. He isn't disapproving – Mycroft disapproves of a lot of things, and while he'd rather Sherlock just had sex and _learned_ to enjoy it like the next person, he wants John to _stay_. He doesn't want Sherlock to ruin it by breaking his _heart_ , or whatever stupid phrase they use for it. Mycroft is just slightly anxious, Sherlock thinks; it's not something either of them can fix.

After all, Sherlock is well aware that if John likes him as he _is_ already, he's unlikely to stop. People in love are _**stupid**_ that way, even more pronouncedly stupid than everyone else.

“Are you going to lie on my floor like an affectionate Great Dane _all_ day, Sherlock, or do you plan on leaving?”

“Pick up a cup of coffee for me as well,” Sherlock demands in a mild tone, by way of reply – Mycroft always goes to pick up his own coffee at 11am, wanting for the exercise of the walk to the café a few streets away (it won't make him any less _fat_ ), and Sherlock isn't yet feeling like moving. Mycroft's lip twitches, adjusting his hold on his stupid umbrella, and then he inclines his head, stepping out of the room.

He locks his office door behind him, and Sherlock lets his eyes shut closed.

He _likes_ John, and he certainly doesn't want to lose an entirely bearable flatmate and a very good _friend_ , not when the two of them are so very rare and when John understands him so much better than any others might hope to. Sherlock has never been used to having friends, and it's so _pleasant_ to have people on his side.

But romance is far further than Sherlock is willing to go.

\---

“Have you ever had a girlfriend?” John attempts to pose the question casually, and fails miserably. Sherlock can tell he's never actually had _sex_ with another man – it shows in the way he looks at them, the way he talks to them even when he knows they're open to any advances – and Sherlock doesn't imagine he's _entirely_ conscious of his attraction to the deductionist he's come to work with.

“Yes,” Sherlock says flatly. “Didn't last. Didn't love her.”

“You didn't love her?”

“I don't do love.” Sherlock says, and his tone _is_ casual as he looks back to his computer, where he's comparing the differences in shampoo and bodywash scents in a somewhat lengthy blog entry. John is staring at him, and Sherlock pretends not to notice.

“You don't do _love_?”

“I'm not capable,” Sherlock says. “I _love_ people, of course – my parents, for example. But I don't experience romantic attraction, and nor do I enjoy such relationships. I find them quite dull, actually.” John is still staring at him.

“Oh.” Sherlock's head whips suddenly to the side, and he stares at John's face. The note in the other man's tone hadn't been disappointed, or thoughtful, or disbelieving. It had been _sympathetic_.

“What?” Sherlock demands, mildly indignant, and John spreads his hands, turning his head away slightly.

“Nothing.”

“No, there's something. What's that _oh_ for?” John looks uncomfortable, discomfited in his old armchair.

“Well, it's _sad_ , Sherlock, that's all.”

“Sad? Why's it sad? It's not _sad_.”

“Well, it is a _bit_. You can't love people-”

“I just told you that I _could_ love people, John-”

“But not properly-”

“ **Properly**?” Sherlock repeats in a sharp, _biting_ tone, and John seems to realize his mistake, his eyes suddenly going owlishly wide as he looks at Sherlock. He's normally better than most – he knows how to talk to Sherlock, how not to insult him, and he's usually something of a moral guide where Sherlock is concerned, but he's suddenly _furious_.

“I didn't mean it like that, Sherlock, it's just-”

“It's just that I'm broken because I don't want to get on my knees and give some _woman_ a ring?” Sherlock asks, surprised to find his cheeks flushing a bright, heated red with pure vexation, and he stands up, squaring his shoulders as he stares down at the other man. “What- _how_ -” Sherlock finds that his lips are just _moving_ , and that sound isn't coming out of his mouth, not properly – he can't concentrate, can't _think_ , and he just wants to smack his best friend's **face**. “How _dare_ you?”

John, to his credit, looks absolutely _terrified_ , and Sherlock can't even _process_ it.

He grabs at his coat, and he ignores whatever it is John starts saying (partly because he can't even hear it, not really: he hears noise, blurred noise that he can't pick into separate words) and he just leaves, slamming the door behind him and pushing past Mrs Hudson when she tries to catch him by the door.

Sherlock doesn't hail a cab. He just _walks_ , briskly, and when some child with a knife in his hand ( _16 years old, needs Bs in his GCSEs to stay on for sixth form, alcoholic sister, dead father, hoodie was a gift from a rich aunt--_ ) tries to mug him Sherlock backhands him so hard across the face he actually drops to the floor. He doesn't _stop_. On a better night he might have stayed, recruited him – on a better night, Sherlock wouldn't have hit him.

He wants a fix.

“Mr Holmes,” says a voice, and Sherlock glances at the lackey, taking her in ( _former SAS training, two German Shepherds, history of breast cancer in the family, recently dead aunt, crush on Mycroft (ugh), recently changed washing powder because her sister was having an allergic reaction--)_ and arching a brow. “We've orders to take you home.”

“I've no intention of going _home_.”

“Then we're to take you to your brother's, sir.” comes her immediate response, sharp, cool: he's not met this one before. She's _knew_. The others on the detail Sherlock well recognizes though, as the other three move to surround him. He could run, certainly, catch a rung of the fire escape to his left and drag himself up to the roofs, but Mycroft's got two or three people in this vicinity anyway, and he'd rather not cut himself in glass again.

His cheeks had been a mess for _weeks_ the last time. It had made shaving very uncomfortable.

Sherlock glances at the four of them, taking in every weak point in the half-second, and then he huffs out a sigh and gives up with the idea of escape – it'd just be too much _effort_. He slides into the back of the girl's car, and he lets her drive him to Mycroft.

\---

He's bollocksed this up. He _knows_ he has, knew he had even before he was Googling “doesn't feel romantic attraction” until five in the morning, and there are bags under his eyes, he's not _slept_ , but the sun is starting to come up and Sherlock still isn't home. It's bad enough that he's been trying not to look at Sherlock, not when he _likes_ the man so much – there's something about him that John just finds completely magnetic, something that draws John in and makes him _want_.

And how can John not? How can John not bloody _wank_ when he's being so smart about it all, when he's running around the flat with no clothes on or when he's getting himself off in the shower, letting out shuddering little moans against the tile without _ever_ saying anyone's name?

John says his, of course. John can't help but think about it, can't help but want and want and _want_ , but he knows that it's just--

 _Wrong_. And so he's Sherlock's best friend, because he _does_ love him as a friend, he **does**.

Of course, John thinks as he picks up his phone, that might be over and done with now.

“Hello, _John_ ,” Mycroft says when he picks up the phone, and John winces, putting his hand to his head and rubbing over his temple with his thumb. He can't quite get over the tight ball of anxiety in his chest, twisting there.

“Uh, hi, Mycroft. Sherlock's with you, then?” And there's so much _relief_ there, so much bloody relief he can't even categorize it – he's never adored and admired a man the way he admires Sherlock bloody Holmes, and the idea that he'd _hurt_ him like this, the idea that he might have sent him out to pick up some awful bloody drug had **terrified** him.

“My brother is asleep.” Mycroft answers shortly, and John breathes in, feeling guilt settle heavily into his form. “You are aware of my address. I expect you at 12.”

“What?” John asks, surprised. He'd half-expected to be told to just be out of the flat by the time Sherlock got back, but he'd not expected to be _summoned_.

“You will be here at 12.” Mycroft repeats, firmly, and then he hangs up. John lets out a very small sigh, and reluctantly moves to the bathroom to get showered and dressed.

There's something off about his relationship with Sherlock, and it's too weighted on John's side, he knows, but he just can't _turn it off_. He just needs to try and adjust to it all.

And Sherlock himself doesn't make it easy.

\---

“You've not done this since you were a child,” Mycroft reminds Sherlock for the third time. Sherlock elbows him hard to the side of the knee, and Mycroft lets out a little hiss of pain, grabbing his brother so _tightly_ by the hair he stiffens and goes utterly still.

“Let me _go_ -”

“Sensitive follicles, aren't they, Sherlock?” Mycroft asks, tightening his grip a little more, and Sherlock raises his elbow: thanks to their position, where Sherlock _had_ had his head laid in his big brother's lap, that sharp elbow is perfectly poised to cause a **lot** of pain to an area Mycroft prefers to keep un _stabbed_ by the sharp bones of anyone, let alone Sherlock Holmes' razor-point elbows.

“That's sensitive too, isn't it, Mycroft?” Sherlock asks deliberately, and Mycroft considers the twist he'd have to do on Sherlock's hair to get his arm out of that angle, or trying to dodge, but no matter _what_ evasive move he attempted, he has no doubt it would lead to them wrestling on the carpet of Mycroft's living room floor.

Now _that_ is undesirable.

“Touché.” Mycroft allows, and he lets Sherlock go. Letting out a low _hmph_ , Sherlock crosses his arms over his chest and lies on his side again, bony cheek comfortably settled on Mycroft's knee. Mycroft smiles at him, despite himself: Sherlock only lets Mycroft _near_ him when he's upset about one thing or another, and usually has to be dragged to Mycroft's proximity.

“Stop it,” Sherlock says sharply, without looking at him. Mycroft looks down at his overwrought face, lacking in sleep (but then, it's _always_ lacking in sleep) with red at the tops of his cheeks. The tears had been a shock reaction more than anything else, Mycroft knows, as Sherlock very rarely cries, but nonetheless it had been very _upsetting_ to see his brother cry.

“Stop what, brother dear?” Mycroft's tone is _full_ of affection, and Sherlock doesn't open his eyes, but lets out an irritable grunt.

“Stop _smiling_.” Mycroft laughs, and with a sharp movement of his right arm, shoves the centre of Sherlock's back and sends him to the floor in an undignified fashion. Sherlock throws himself up, standing up straight to his full height, but he almost falters slightly when Mycroft stands as well – he forgets, Mycroft knows, that although _John_ is somewhat lacking in height, many others really do _measure up._

“Just one more _growth spurt_ , Sherlock, and you might have caught up with me.” Mycroft murmurs, and Sherlock rolls his eyes. He walks across the room, drawing on a new blazer from the stock of spare clothes Mycroft keeps on hand for incidents such as _these_. In the past, of course, Sherlock has merely been on the run from some authority or another rather than having had a _tiff_ with his flatmate, but times **do** rather change.

Mycroft hears the doorbell ring, and he settles to sit again, waiting for John to be brought in.

\---

Sherlock is silent where he sits in the cab beside John. John keeps glancing at him, but he doesn't say anything, so Sherlock doesn't brook the silence himself, instead looking absently out of the window at the passers by.

“I'm sorry.” John says suddenly, and Sherlock turns to stare at him.

“I know,” Sherlock says, mildly perplexed. “We've just _had_ apologies.”

“I _know_ ,” John retorts, irritation on his features, and adds, “But that was with Mycroft watching, and like, _you know_. I am sorry, honestly, Sherlock. I'd never have said something like that if I'd bloody well _thought_.”

“Well, you're not in the habit of it, are you?” Sherlock asks, the tease delivered cleanly. With John, teasing is very different than it is with Mycroft – with Mycroft, there's always a layer of threat, of promised pain, of _violence_. It's always complicated, overlaid with two or three meanings at once, all centred about the fact that the two of them are somewhat unique in their respective intelligences, and linked for the sake of it. Sherlock knows _most_ fraternity isn't the way his and Mycroft's is, but it's still a very close relationship.

And he and John are close _too_ , of course, but it's simpler. It's more--- Light-hearted.

John laughs, and he smiles at Sherlock, smiles at him so warmly and fondly that Sherlock almost forgets where that little expression is _unfortunately_ rooted. “Well, I _am_. I just don't think like the Holmeses do, obviously.”

“ _Obviously_.” Sherlock grins, and then he says, tone as diplomatic as he can manage, “And, uh, that's why I don't _do_ relationships. I don't really enjoy sex, and the romantic aspect is not interesting at all, so I just avoid the whole thing.”

“Oh,” John says, and then he frowns. “You don't enjoy sex?” He doesn't follow it up with a statement that he thought Sherlock was a virgin, but nor does he laugh and call Sherlock a _freak_ , which is a nice change.

“Not really.”

“Oh. Alright.” John actually _does_ seem a little disappointed at that, and it makes Sherlock so _uncomfortable_ , for some reason he can't quite put a finger on (he's not attracted to _anyone_ , really, but least of all is he attracted to **John** ), but he doesn't want to point it out, so he doesn't. “You, uh, you have any other aspects of your identity you want me to put my foot in while getting my brain around, or…?”

Sherlock lets out the _ugliest_ little snort of surprised laughter he's ever made, and John starts to laugh just at the sound and **sight** of it.

“Uh, no, no, I think I'm alright, actually. No sex, no romance. You? I mean, you know, if there's something about you I've yet to insult--”

“No, Sherlock, you've actually got everything covered, so far.”

“Oh, good, glad to know I'm on track.” It's _nice_ , this banter with John – it's not stressful, like the back-and-forth he has with the police inspectors, knowing they all really _do_ hate him. And Lestrade is even harder – Lestrade does _adore_ Sherlock, Sherlock is certain, and Sherlock might _tentatively_ admit to sharing a similar affection for him, but they're not as familiar as he and John are.

Though John and Lestrade _do_ have in common that they want to shag Sherlock, Sherlock supposes.

It's a bit distasteful, really, but he has faith that John will _grow out_ of it.

Or at least, he has faith in his own ability to _make_ him.


End file.
